


Endgame

by r_lee



Category: Last Exile
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chess is like the best of friendships: eternal, never-ending, and enduring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endgame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/gifts).



> A Yuletide treat for you.

"Look at them, Lucciola. They're... happy!" Far, far below on the planet's surface, people go about their business. They do the everyday things: rebuild, go to market, fly their vanships, plant crops, farm, mine. They fall in love, they marry, they bear children, they breathe, they fight, they die, they revel in the shift that's starting to leave the land less of a desert and more of a paradise. Ground-dwellers all, they remain blissfully ignorant of what goes on in the skies above them even as they cope with the end of the war and the things that have changed. All of them are unaware of being watched or, to put it more succinctly, _observed._

Up here at what he's come to call one of their observation posts, Lucciola readies the exquisitely-carved chess pieces and sets them out in their proper spaces. White squares, black squares: once the men are in place he sits back and waits for Dio's acknowledgment. He will never make the first move until his friend—his _friend_ —gives him the go-ahead. For years, each game of chess they've played has started with the same opening. He makes the passive move; Dio counters aggressively. The game goes on along the same lines and in the same vein, with a predestined outcome. Every now and again Lucciola finds himself wanting to be brave and make a stronger move but always, in the end, he backs down. His purpose is to serve, not to disrupt, and his game of choice is the quiet game. The only time he interrupts that reticence and quiet contemplation is either at the behest of or for the protection of Lord Dio, and it has always been this way. It likely always _will_ be this way.

"They do look happy." From their vantage point above the clouds, Lucciola gazes down with a pinpoint precision he never truly had during life. There is something liberating about being here now. In his heart of hearts he knows that with Delphine gone there is no further need for subservience. That he earned his freedom protecting the one he loved—loves—best in this world is beyond dispute. Even Dio seems to recognize this, although his attitude hasn't changed. That's good; he loves Dio for who he is, not for who he wishes his friend would be. He's loved him since they were five years old. He loves him fiercely, protectively, like a brother and a father and a lover—were that to be allowed—and a protector. He's been the knight to Dio's king, zig-zagging out in front of him to divert attention, to take the hit, to provide the ultimate buffer. That's been his purpose.

Up here above the clouds, the world looks bright and white and lofty. Dio's voice, immense and encompassing, blankets him like a cloud of his very own. To watch a loved one's descent into madness wasn't easy, although the objective eye might assume madness runs in the Eraclea family. Delphine was certainly afflicted by it and gone though she is, it's poetic justice dictating that she appears to have been ineligible to join them on this leg of their journey. There were many times over the years when Delphine was odd man out, an unwelcome third where they were concerned, and he knows his death served a purpose both for her and for Dio. It made her feel powerful but it served to keep Dio alive long enough to escape. His sacrifice was one well worth making, and dying, when he thinks about it, didn't hurt and wasn't awful. It just _was,_ nothing more, nothing less. The moment of it burned into his soul like the most beautiful, most elegant song and he was glad for the relief and release.

He never cared for Delphine, but he was grateful to her for giving him to Dio at such a young age. That formed him and gave his life a purpose beyond simple identification as Cicada's brother. It gave him someone to love and someone to call friend, and he wasn't supposed to have a friend and wasn't supposed to know love. But he did and does and it proved a powerful and transcendent thing, and it meant and means something. His life was never wasted after all.

In his typical elite fashion, nothing about any of this seems to have touched Lord Dio. As if he hadn't lapsed into some grief-ridden insanity at the last minute and tumbled from his ship into the skies below, only to be captured and caught by these very clouds and the abiding love and affection binding them into something everlasting, he crosses his leg and makes a brash, thoughtless move that puts his queen in danger. As always, Lucciola backtracks from his previous strategy, rethinks the moves he was going to make, and places his bishop onto the board into a less strategic position. For him, right or wrong, it's imperative that Dio win this and every game. It's something he does not out of a sense of worthlessness but out of friendship, out of abiding affection, out of care. When Dio grins maniacally and moves his queen into the perfect checkmate position, Lucciola bows his head in defeat. It's all mock defeat, though: now and always, he opts for the quiet game and that gives him the strength and power he needs to carry on beyond life, beyond death, beyond a place where the physical matters.

Here, he has Dio and the soft white-and-blue of the skies and enough clean cool first water. Here, he has the echoes and memories of cake and food, and a soft cloud-formed bed. Here, he can look down on the twin worlds of Anatoray and Disith in all their glorious rebirth and marvel for all of time at how beautiful life is.

From behind, Dio or the embodiment of Dio catches him up in an unexpected hug, just as he did many times while they were still in far more mortal and solid forms. When it happens here it's as if they merge and become one; it's as if all the skies brighten. "You let me win again," Dio sings softly into his ear.

There's only one thing Lucciola can offer in response. "We're... friends."

Dio's laughter, echoing throughout their cloudy throne room, is the salve Lucciola has always sought. "That's right, Lucciola. You and me, we're friends forever."

What could be better?


End file.
